The invention relates to, generally, a food preparation item, and more particularly relates to a method and apparatus for slicing substantially circular food items such as bagels, muffins, donuts and the like. A number of machines and devices for slicing bagels, and the like have been disclosed in the prior art. These generally comprise holding jigs or receptacles where the food item is placed for slicing with a conventional knife.
Many of the bagel slicing machines may be suitable for use in a production environment, but, are too large or expensive to be suitable for in-home use. Additionally, many of these machines do not work very well, and are seldom used in the production environment except when a large number of bagels needs to be sliced quickly, for example, to satisfy a large sandwich order. The nonuse of these machines leads an observer to believe that the machines have some serious shortcomings such as difficulty in use and poor quality of the slicing cut.
The prior art also disclose the bagel or food item slicers intended for home use usually are a bagel holder with guides for guiding the user supplied conventional knife to slice the bagel in a conventional manner. While the guide type of slicer does make it much easier for a user to slice a bagel into two approximately equal pieces, frequently, the user has no choice as to the thickness of one of the pieces, and may have one large and one small piece. Some of the slicing guides allow selecting the slicing point with respect to the guide, but, generally, to change the slicing point involves movement of the guides, and is not easily done for one bagel. It is more suitable for moving the slicing point for example changing from bagels to English muffins. An additional shortcoming of the guide type of slicer is that a conventional knife is used and often the knife blade is exposed and there is the risk of the user being cut.
Briefly stated, the invention is a small portable apparatus for slicing bagels, english muffins, donuts, or other baked food items. The invention has an outer annulus enclosing a central cutting chamber for holding the food item and a pair of covers for retaining the food item centered in the cutting chamber. The covers are rounded plates pivotally attached to the base, and preferably held in a closed position. A pair of arcuate knives are pivotally attached to the inner surface of the annulus at one end, the second end of the knives are attached to an inner annular ring. The inner annular ring has an attached handle extending radially outward through the outer annulus. Moving the handle rotates the inner annulus which causes the knives to pivot through an arc cutting through the food item. The knives have both curved inner and a curved outer surface and are sized to fit adjacent the inner annulus. The inner curved surface is the cutting edged and is preferably sharpened serrated cutting edge.
The covers are approximately circular in shape having an extended attachment tab formed on and extending outwardly from the lower edge. The attachment tab extends downwardly to provide a point of attachment between the covers and the base.
The base of the bagel slicer is generally rectangular in shape and has a flattened bottom for placement on a conventional flat work surface. The covers are pivotally attached to the base.